


Rules for That Kind of Thing

by Theo_Winterwood



Category: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theo_Winterwood/pseuds/Theo_Winterwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Butch was the kind of man who deplored stagnation. He would have had folks think it was for all his great vision, the wealth and font of innovation he had bubbling up inside him, too damned interesting and exciting to just leave be while settling on a slow routine of the same old thing. But Sundance knew it was because Butch was just plain terrible at being bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules for That Kind of Thing

Butch was the kind of man who deplored stagnation. He would have had folks think it was for all his great vision, the wealth and font of innovation he had bubbling up inside him, too damned interesting and exciting to just leave be while settling on a slow routine of the same old thing. But Sundance knew it was because Butch was just plain terrible at being bored.

Boredom was having both hands tied behind your back with a terrible itch at the end of your nose.

Boredom was worse than death for Butch Cassidy.

So Sundance would let Butch dream, let him have the big wild ideas; _just keep at that, that’s what you’re good at._

_You’re for thinking, I’m for doing._

Division of labor in an equal partnership and all that, even if they did tend to list his name first on the wanted posters and call it Butch’s gang, just because he was the mouthy one who never shut up and drew all the attention.

In their time together, however, Sundance had learned that Butch’s ideas were never quite as big or genius as he fashioned them being. They weren’t give-me-a-fulcrum-lever-big-enough notions. They were more along the lines of I-know-a-good-hotel-in-Kansas-City-so-let’s-go-up-for-a-weekend. 

_We can play cards and eat at the good restaurant I know._

_Etta can buy a hat._

_I can buy a new pocketwatch._

_You can order room service in the hotel and we can stay in bed all day._

Small ideas like that. Good ideas. At least, ideas Sundance never found any reason to talk Butch out of.

“Here’s a thought,” Butch said, leaning over the balcony railing to watch the people walking past Madam Mary’s porch in the falling dusk. “Why don’t we go out to California for a while?”

“California where?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Sundance. Fresno. San Francisco. You pick.”

Sundance thought it over, leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the railing and looking up at the first stars winking on in the half-lit sky. “For work?” he asked after a minute.

“Nah, just for the hell of it. We’ve got a little money.”

“This is why there’s never any money left.”

“So we’ll rob a bank on the way back,” Butch told him. “Easy. Problem solved.”

Sundance was quiet again. “Etta comes.”

Butch looked at him with incredulous amusement. “Sure, Etta comes. Of course she does, she’s our woman, isn’t she?”

“Our woman?” Sundance shot him a dark warning look. “Etta is _my_ woman.”

Butch laughed. “Aw, come on, Sundance. You know that’s not—Strictly speaking, I mean, if we want to be honest here: We both know that’s not really true.”

“Sure it is. I say it is.”

“But why?” Butch asked.

“Because there are rules about this kind of thing.”

“Sundance, you’re an outlaw. You’re wanted in five states that I know about and probably at least five others I don’t. Since when does ‘there are rules’ mean anything to you?”

Sundance leaned back forward in his chair, picked up his half-empty glass of beer, and regarded Butch sullenly in a way that said, _I want to disagree but I don’t see a good argument against you._

“Don’t be like that,” Butch chided him. “I was just going for truth over technicality. You and I and she all know how the cards lie now. We might as well just admit it.”

“Don’t talk to me about cards.”

“It’s a what-you-call—A metaphor.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.” Butch regarded Sundance fondly. “All right, fine. Have it your way.”

“I’m just saying. You go to bed with other women that aren’t Etta.”

“So?”

“So there are rules. You can’t call my woman your woman when you’ve got all the other women on the side.”

Butch sighed. “My father ran around on my mother all the time and she was still his woman. And it’s not ‘all the other women.’ It’s maybe, what? Ten? Twelve? Let’s call it a baker’s dozen and leave it at that.”

“Your parents were married.”

“So?”

“So that changes it.”

“You want me to marry Etta?”

“You do and I’ll kill you.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“No.” Sundance sighed, annoyed. “I probably wouldn’t.”

Butch reached over and drank the last of Sundance’s beer. “I surrender. You win. She’s your woman.” He smiled then, the half-fought-back kind of smile that shone in his eyes. “I guess that makes you just _her_ man, then?”

Sundance opened his mouth to answer and then stopped. He scowled and looked back up at the sky. “No. I don’t think so.”

Butch raised his eyebrows, inviting him to elaborate.

Sundance wasn’t looking at him but felt the invitation anyway. “I don’t know, Butch. There aren’t already any rules written for this.”


End file.
